Streams of green light
by lesilec
Summary: On the day when meteor collides with the planet, a girl is lost to Cloud. He begins a trek across an unfamiliar world for her. On the other side of the planet, the girl, lost and alone, searches for her forgotten memories.
1. She is gone

I assume that, if you're reading this, you're reading my fic, and I thank you for that. This fic, however, is in the process of some crazy rehabilitation, and for that I apologize. My chapters are also incredibly short. I cannot apologize for that, as my laziness is the only one I can blame, and there ain't nothing I can do about that.

-----silec

* * *

A golden sunset, the last one to be seen. An aura of red encircling our apocalyptic punishment, a second aura, of blinding white, doing little to stop it. Streams of green light, everywhere, encompassing everything that I knew and all that I never would. The planet is dying now, in the greatest peril, and yet it is saved for eternity. My friends look on, speechless, at the spectacle of luminescence below our sputtering, failing lady luck. We are going to die, I think, and I know, but damn, this is beautiful. 

Billows of smoke pour from our engine, and the crank of broken gears, trying and losing, is increasingly audible. I see her, and she has water in her eyes. There is a look, that she is thinking deeply, and that she's not completely there. She stands, with a worried, gloved hand to her chest, and the other clutching the rusted railing of the deck. I want to ask her why she is crying. I want to hold her, and never let go until I die. But I don't. I can't. It's all I can do to place a hand on her shoulder, and look into her eyes. She's so beatiful. But I've never seen such sadness, such worry in her eyes. I grip her hands in mine, and give her a hard smile, the only kind I have to give.

I trace my eyes around my meager crew, preparing in my mind a doomed pep talk. But as I open my mouth, time is slowed to a snail's pace. I see everything through an outside being. There is nothing I can do. I see the deck of our poor lady luck collapsing, the railing folding in upon itself like a paper tube. Each chip of metal, each spark flies off in slow motion. My crew dive beneath the flickering terminals and shield their heads.

But not her. She is gone, off in some other land, questioning all there is to be questioned. The railing folds upon her unknowing hand, and a dull crack emanates from the broken fingers. Only then does she wake up, the tears in her eyes relinquishing their hold, streaming down in laggard droplets. Her arm jerks back in pain. I see the railing tumble town into the abyss. She trips, the hollow sound of her knees hitting the iron floorboard echoing above the sounds of chaos below and around me. She casts a hand in my direction. I see her mouth form the letters of my name, as she calls out in frightened desperation. But I do nothing. I only collapse onto my hands and knees and cry.

My crew, my friends, see the predicament. They rush forward to help her, pushing past my deadened, kneeling form, but it's much too late. Through it all, I raise my chin and notice an image. The red, fiery meteorite. The glowing holiness surrounds it in vain. That golden sun, illuminating it all, an eternal audience that cares little for the tired plot line. And she, the beauteous subject of the portrait, my love, my only, clinging by her nails to the remainder of our ship's floor.

Her legs dangle helplessly over torn metal and circuitry. Her tear-stained face looks at me. That final look. That one look, and then time restarts.

She is over the edge.

She is gone.

* * *

_ An empty and barren desert. There lies a girl, unconscious, her face buried within the endless sands. Her arms outstretched, she seems to be hugging the Earth. Her hand is twisted and scarred, among other things, and she appears to be, among other things, very much dead. A lone chocobo, one of the few survivors, trots up to her, and give a tentative peck to her forehead. And another, when she does not awaken. The chocobo lets out a resounding "kweh." The girl wakes up, and coughs up a large amount of sand. _

_ "Hey, there's a girl over here!" comes a shout from the distance._

_-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

_His face is in his hands, and he sits upon a moss-covered boulder overlooking the wind-swept beach. Nature, in many aspects, seems unaffected. He won't speak to anyone, not even his friends who are doing their best to console him and each other.  
  
He doesn't want them to see him cry, even though they know that's obviously what he's been doing for the past hour. But they leave him alone and instead hopelessly attempt to repair the fallen aircraft. Yuffie hovers about the area, tending to people's wounds, physical and emotional, as best she can, but is failing miserably. There's nothing they can do._


	2. Lost

Short chapter. Again. I'm very sorry, I'm attempting to work on this story and some JTHM-related stuff at the same time, screwing up both in the process. Chapter 4 should be up any day now.

--------silec

* * *

The world was changed. Not just the landscape, which in and of itself had become completely alien in the space of a few hours, but the atmosphere surrounding the humans still alive within it. They seemed unanimated, dead. It would have done them all good to spend some time thinking, alone.This is what he told himself when people started leaving. There are many factors, of course, says his mind. They need time. They're just as lost and confused as I am. Everybody knows that they all just need some time.  
  
But he was the only one who can say it. He, the fearless leader. When Vincent first approached the group, with a humbled request that he be allowed to leave for an unknown period of time, everyone looked to Cloud. He, of course, gave him permission. As he did for Barret and Red, and finally for Yuffie when her emergency supply of perkiness eventually petered out. 

Two weeks after the accident, Cloud took a slow, steady walk through the airship. Through a constant effort, she was repaired to almost new. But his footsteps in the empty shell left a dull, hollow ache in his chest. The metal was the same. The wiring, the layout was exactly the same. But it was so very different. That soul-crushing absence.

A fortnight on that depressing cliff had done something to his mind. He became fidgety, always questioning Cid about how long it would be until they'd be ready for takeoff.

Reeve's doll was malfunctioning. His connection, from all the way in Midgar to God knows where had been nearly severed, leaving him only able to send messages. Motor control was completely offline. At the moment, Cait Sith's only purpose was a large, plush intercom. Sometimes Cloud wished that Reeve could be there in person, to diminish that searing loneliness somewhat. The doll had also become quite annoying. His messages were often vague and repeated over and over again like a broken record.

The ship left at dawn, the next day. Cid's crew had remained, leaving him to try and fix Cait Sith while they piloted the ship. Cloud was their captain, as always. He directed them to seemingly random locations, letting the ship touch down upon the cracked earth for only a few seconds before shouting out more coordinates. Every now and then, it became necessary that they stop, for supplies or whatever reason fit the circumstances. It is on these stops that Cloud first saw the full extent of the tragedy. Towering metropolises reduced to smoldering wreckage, monuments that had stood for ages now a blackened crater. 

Cloud saw it in the eyes of people, too. At one nameless, featureless campsite, he leaned against a supporting pole of a merchant's tent, impatiently waiting for Cid to finish up his purchase and get back into the air. He caught the shadowed glances of more than one individual. They'd seen his face before, and they'd long since attributed it to fear and destruction. He knew it wouldn't be long before Avalanche took the blame for yet another misfortune. Smiling, he said to himself, "I suppose the world isn't so different after all."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

_ He didn't want the girl in his village. Nobody did. Nobody except that fool and that useless bird that had found her. She had no purpose but to cry and to ache and to ask questions, so many questions. Her hand was broken, making her even more useless. He, like everyone else, wanted her sent back to the desert to rot.  
  
_


	3. Nih rusa

_"It's getting dark!" Cid called out. "Don't you think we should get going?" When there was no answer from the antisocial clod below, he sighed, shook his head, and rolled up the ladder connected to the ship's deck. She had been parked in a haphazard condition, balanced atop a rocky mound that served as the centerpiece for an especially annoying community, one run by a disagreeable young woman who flat out refused to trade with them for reasons unknown. _

_ Before returning to the bridge, Cid looked up at the sky. Dark blue, with shining stars. It amazed him how many stars there were. He'd never seen so many of them within the confines of the planet's smoky atmosphere. Standing there, he began to think that perhaps there was a bright side to everything in this world. He threw his cigarette to the ground and extinguished it with the toe of his boot. "Guess we'll be staying here tonight, then."_

_-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

Her hand was mending, slowly. Much too slowly for the women of the village, however. She took their home remedies and potions with a smile, and liked to pretend that all of them just wanted her to be happy and well again, but she knew that it's only so she can be put to work like a mule once she was better. Still, she decided, it was much nicer than whatever fate she would have had wandering the desert. She kept an open mind, too, in the hopes that somewhere out there, somebody knew who she was.  


* * *

Sometimes the bones in Tifa's hand would crack, like she was snapping her knuckles, if she worked them too much, but it didn't hurt quite as much anymore. They were willing to take this as a full recovery, and she wasn't willing to fight them anymore. 

In the first few days, she spent time being shuffled from one dull task to the next. She displayed competency in very few of them, and none of them gave her any real satisfaction, save for when she was placed in charge of the chocobos. So there she stayed. Through her care, the birds were made strong and healthy. Some people were impressed. Impressed enough to not hate her entirely as much as before. They didn't believe her when she said that she'd had no prior experience with the chocobos.

Tifa was given permission to ride them every now and then. She never went too far, but just far enough that the little town barely peeked at her from below the horizon. She enjoyed pretending that she was a brave adventurer, riding her noble steed to the edge of the Earth and beyond.

When it got dark, and she lay in bed pondering her various thoughts, she imagined herself as that brave adventurer again, fighting monsters and saving the world from danger. In her imagination, she had a gang of friends who all loved her and would do anything for her. She was strong, and could defeat anything that would dare challenge her.

Life in the village was an odd experience. Whether or not Tifa could remember any of her prior experiences would probably have had very little effect on her time there in this small town.

The town, barely a few months old, was named Ymeja-Ruba. It was a word from an old, old language, of a people long extinct. Roughly translated, it meant "our hope that still lives." To Tifa, the name was highly inappropriate for a town with such people as citizens. Their faces showed no hope, only despair, shattered dreams and crushed spirits.

Nonetheless, Tifa began to grow accustomed to the villagers, and as time passed, she grew to hate them and their annoying habits more and more. The way that they went on and on about all the precious material possesions they had lost. The way they refused to acknowledge her existence except when she had done something wrong.

Above all, it was the constant uncertainty that she had whenever she went to bed on where she would awaken. On sleepless nights spent on uncomfortable, unfamiliar bedding, she wondered which would be worse; spending yet another day there, or that she would be returned to the desert.

No longer content to have her future decided by the whims of such infuriating people. So Tifa devised a plan. She would take her favorite chocobo, a black one she had christened Eryl, and get away from this awful place. From eavesdropping on the conversations of others, she had learned the names of several cities which may or may not still have existed.

It did not matter to her where she went, as long as it was far away, but one had particularly piqued her interest. Many of the villagers came from that city; Midgar. They had fled the city when meteor struck, and then set up camp there. Tifa heard stories of brilliant, everlasting light, with bustling street corners and buildings of glistening chrome. To her, it seemed like magic. And, perhaps, with so many people there, someone would find her and take her home.

With little deliberation within her head, she decided to head there at daybreak. Before anyone else was awake, she gathered a few supplies and lead Eryl from his pen. Knowing only that Midgar lay in a northeastish direction, she pointed her chocobo towards the sun with a wavering sense of purpose and flew away, letting her dreams carry her there.

* * *

_ They were all sitting, together, on the deck. More or less together, and only as much in the present place and time as they had been in the past few weeks. _

_ Cloud was there, or not there, as always, staring blankly at whatever caught his eye. Cait Sith was there, too, repaired, somewhat. He was now a large, plush walkie-talkie. Cid's industrious crew worked at their posts, seemingly without end. Their diligence was frightening. _

_ And there was Cid, perhaps the only one who was truly ever there. "So where do we go?" he asked, again. Cloud gave a vague shrug. His hands moved, touching each other, then breaking apart as if the other were a poison. However, a spark appeared to alight in his face. _

_ "We could go to Nibel..." he wondered aloud._


	4. Again

As of late, it as come to my attention that, among other problems, the length and formatting of my chapters is crap. Hence the lateness of this one. While I don't expect them to be completely fixed, I hope that anything that I did helps. Please continue to review; without them I would shrivel into a tiny raisin.

Also, as a result, I'm probably going to have to fix up the rest of the chapters. This will probably cause a large non-making senseness within the entirety of the story. I apologize, but chapter 5 should be up...within...someday. 

------------silec

* * *

_ Tifa was surrounded on all sides by dense forest. With wide, frightened eyes, she sat huddled against a cold stump rubbing her knees. Eryl, the poor, oblivious bird, was calmly drinking from a creek with an unnatural greenish tint. They were lost. And she was pretty sure that it was her fault. The chocobo had pulled at her hands, wanting to go faster, and she had absentmindedly loosened her grip on the reins. He sped off like a rocket, then, recklessly tearing through rivers and cliffsides, finally running out of breath and ending up stranded in this place._

_ Tifa held her head in her hands, thinking hard. She made small clucking noises at Eryl, calling him to her. He trotted over, and she rapped him lightly on the head. A gull flew by overhead. Within her verdant prison, she nurtured a hatred for the gull and its freedom. _

_ Tifa stroked Eryl's shimmering ebony wings. "I guess we'll be spending the night here," she said, receiving a sharp kweh in return.  
_

_--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

_The sun sat high in the sky. It was unbearably hot outside. The bright rays reflected off of glinting relics of the old cities only making things worse. Cloud felt ill. Ill and guilty, and hot, an unholy triad. He pulled a sweaty glove from his hand and fanned his reddened, sticky face with it. The tall spikes of his hair drooped. He was sitting within the cool interior of the airship, and still he felt as if he was being roasted alive by the demons themselves. Shifting the crate where he had seated himself, he peered out onto the bridge, where Cid stood, barking orders to his crew. _

_ He felt like small child. Everyone else was taking charge and making big decisions, while he was lounging about feeling nauseous. But he wasn't going to take that anymore. He was going to make the decisions, accept responsibilities. Cloud sprang up and defiantly kicked the crate against the wall. "Cid!" He shouted. "Get me a bucket, I'm feeling sick!"_

* * *

It wasn't as if Cid felt annoyance towards Cloud's actions after the unfortunate accident. He was feeling the strongest kind of guilt, the kind you get when you've hurt someone you love. He could understand that. He had often felt that way about Shera. Now more than ever, he found himself thinking about her. He wanted to know what she was doing, if she was okay.

But some things, he told himself, can get to you. Cloud spent his days barricaded in the room once used for briefing their team. He would only leave to ask if they were any closer to their destination, and the instances that were getting fewer and farther between when he needed to obey his body's need for food and other such luxuries. He never helped inspect the ship, or navigate, or anything that could possibly make the trip any faster, and Cid was much too afraid to break the barrier surrounding that dank room to ask him for any assistance. So now Cid's shift encompassed all hours of the day.

It was hard enough to identify the exact location of Nibelheim. To do it alone was nearly impossible. In addition to the many changes done to manmade structures and natural landmarks, the collision had sparked a worldwide quake of such large proportions that the tectonic plates had shifted more than they would have within a million years. Thus, Cloud and Tifa's hometown, once on the western continent, could be anywhere at all, assuming that it still existed.

One night, Cid was the last one left awake on the ship, yet again. He struggled to keep his eyes open, and his head was propped up on the same railing that had sent Tifa tumbling to the ground. His mouth hung open slightly, and the cigarette in his mouth joined the dozens of others littering the deck. He was contemplating giving up and going to his unused bed, when he saw something. The lack of rest made Cid rub his eyes several times when he saw a massive shape on the horizon. He stretched his neck as far as it would go, and he could see it clearly there. A fallen angel, and perhaps their only hope of finding Nibelheim.

Lying on her side, silhouetted by the moon, was Shinra no. 26. It was the hopes and dreams of Rocket Town. The small dwellings that had once clung to this dream were gone, leaving only the rusting carcass.

Cid backed slowly away from the railing, keeping his eyes on the rocket, then broke into a sprint and shouted to all the inhabitants of the Highwind. He half-dragged them to the deck. The ship ambled in a slow circle in the night sky above the deserted town. It was new moon, the only source of light being the blue-white stars dotting the black heavens. A cold wind sliced through the deathly silence. The ship would inevitably head over the Nibel Mountains, toward Nibelheim's supposed location, but Cid would not act without Cloud's permission. He was still mostly asleep, but he knew the importance of this decision. Cloud knew, too, what he needed to do. "Go," He murmured, letting go of all his inhibitions, and focusing all the "what if"s commandeering his mind into a single hope, that perhaps, waiting for him at the gates of his home, was Tifa.

At that moment, high above the green plains, the sound of metal grinding together echoed all around them. Smoke rose from between the metal floorboards. There was a malfunction within the ship, down in the engine room. It didn't take long for the massive airship to begin plummeting towards the ground. One of Cid's crew managed to shout to Cloud over the confusion. "You've got to get to the engine room! There's something interfering with the gears!"

Cloud waved the smoke from his face and ran from the pandemonium. He started towards the engine room, but a hand gripped his shoulder. His feet slipped and his face made contact with a storage crate. Flipping himself over, Cloud glared at his assailant. Cid grabbed the young man by the shoulders and roughly hoisted him to his feet. "What the hell is wrong with you?! You want to get yourself killed?! We have to jump!" An explosion from a lower floor knocked them both over, and they shielded their eyes from the resulting cascade of pipes and wiring. Cloud pushed Cid aside and crawled towards the stairs, coughing and tripping repeatedly. "We're not going to make it on foot! You and your crew go on without me! I'll try to fix the ship!" he shouted. Already, he could feel his consciousness freeing itself to the thick haze filling the ship.

He removed his sword from the sheath on his back and stabbed it into the floor, using it as an anchor to carry his unfeeling legs. With the last of his strength, he pulled himself to the edge of the stairwell and gripped the railing in a vain attempt to regain his posture. His breathing irregular, Cloud turned his head to see Cid making his way towards him, a parachute in hand. A million miles away, he heard Cid's irritated voice. "We gotta do this hard way?"

* * *

_ "Come on, Eryl, it's late, we have to get moving." The black chocobo clawed at the dry, mahogany dirt, sniffing it curiously. "You stupid bird," Tifa said, tiredly beckoning Eryl across a small creek that was barely a trickle. She yanked at his reins, but he remained at the other side. A third time, he daintily stuck a claw into the puddle of water before quickly removing it and squawking pitifully. "YOU STUPID BIRD!" she cried out, increasing his distress. _

_ She tried dangling some gysahl greens over his beak. Nothing. She tried pleading with the chocobo. Nothing. Finally, she tried leaving him behind, and he was at her side, chirping excitedly, in seconds._

_ Tifa smiled, and patted his head. "You stupid, useless bird."_


End file.
